Jacinth is my little book worm and I love it! For Christmas we got her a LED book light that attaches to her bed. I wanted her to be able to stay up and read for a little while after she has gone to bed and not disturb Amelia while doing it. This light is perfect! But... at least 2 nights in the past 2 weeks she has read for 1 1/2 hours after we have tucked her in! I only know of those two times because the first time the book had a 'scary' part where Emily was letting her imagination run wild and spooking herself. I think if she had read it during the day and not at 9:00 at night she would have been fine. And then last night as I was getting ready for bed at 9:30 she comes walking into my room saying her ear was making a weird sound. I could see she hadn't been asleep so I asked her if she had been reading the whole time... sure enough. She had been reading for 1 1/2 hours again! I think I am going to have to start setting the timer and checking on her each night. :)

I love catching my kids reading and working together.

So sweet!

The end. :)

  Honduras? I'm sure you are wondering what this is about! Well, Jesse and I will be going there this summer on a mission trip for our 10th Anniversary.

Here is the story. A couple of months ago on the way to church I told Jesse that for our 10th Anniversary (May 25^th) I wanted to do something big. I want to go somewhere besides Branson - possibly even to another country. While I have never been out of the country (well, I was in Mexico {barely} for a couple of hours when I was a teenager), Jesse has been to Egypt, Russia, and Mexico (with layovers in other countries). It makes me excited and nervous to think of going to another country.

So we get to church and I pick up a bulletin and go sit down and look at it. There it is! An announcement that a man from our church (a former missionary) will be leading 3 mission trips to Honduras in 2012. The second one being May 26-June 3. I couldn't believe it! This was it! This is where we will go for our 10th Anniversary!! I showed Jesse and he agreed but ugh... do you know where Honduras is? I knew it was somewhere South. Of course I looked it up when we got home.

After looking it up I realized it isn't that far. :) We didn't say anything to anyone for a while and just prayed about it. Then a few weeks ago I finally told the man leading the trip. He was so excited - and so was I! It was now 'official'.

I'm not sure what all we will be doing while there but I am looking forward to my first mission trip and what better time to do it than for our 10th Anniversary!? Now, we just need to find $3,000 and someone to watch our kids. God will provide. Any volunteers?

While looking at the Black Friday ads I saw that Target was going to have the same Kindle Keyboard but with 3G (I could connect to the internet at any time and not just when I had a wireless connection) for only $85! The price on Amazon is about $139. Jesse had also checked out the Kindle and he really liked it too. He said he would take the 'old' one if I bought this new one. I debated and debated for about a week. I was still debating Black Friday {early!} morning as Ivy and I were shopping. Then we got to Target and saw that the line for electronics was 1/2 way around the store and you weren't even guaranteed to get what you wanted. We decided it wasn't worth it and left. We came back a few hours later and there was NO line and they had a few left! But they were white and I wanted grey. I decided I would just buy it and then return it when they got the others in. Then I got home and couldn't help but open it and check it out. The old Kindle had a pretty flowery skin on it and Jesse wanted it off since it was going to be his so I thought I would try putting it on the white one if it came off of Jesse's in one piece. It worked! It isn't perfect but it was good enough.

Next I started searching out how I could find free books. I was amazed at how many free books I could find. I specifically wanted Christian books and I've found a lot! I currently have 70 fiction, 10 devotions, 31 non-fiction, 2 Bibles & 6 cookbooks (along with 37 children's/classic books) on my Kindle that were FREE! This doesn't count the books I have already read and deleted off.

Here are the sites I use to get my free books:

• Spirit Filled Kindle
• Inspired Reads
• Gospel eBooks
• Christian Fiction eBooks
• Daily Cheap Reads (these aren't all Christian books but they do have a lot)

I love that the Kindle is so small and that is has all the books I want to read on it (no more super heavy library bag full of books for me). It also saves my place so I don't have to worry about a bookmark falling out and losing my place. The kids also love reading books on it. Some libraries also have books you can check out on your Kindle but I haven't tried that yet. I still have plenty to read before that happens!

Happy Reading!

Happy New Year!